KeyQuant was founded in 2009 in Paris by Robert Baguenault de Viéville and Raphael Gelrubin who met in 2004 at Man-Fidex, where they jointly developed a trend following investment strategy built on a probabilistic analysis of financial markets and an efficient allocation process to diversify and control in real-time the portfolio exposure.

Key Trends Ucits implements the same investment strategy of existing programmes managed by KeyQuant since January 2010 and available in managed accounts and in an offshore fund. The Key Trends Ucits fund differentiates by excluding commodities from its investment universe and targets a volatility of 10 per cent to match the UCITS requirements and European institutional investor’s needs. Moreover, the fund does not use total return swaps and therefore complies fully with the essence of the Ucits regulation.

Antoine Rolland (pictured), chief executive of NewAlpha, says: “At NewAlpha, we are seeing about 600 managers every year including many CTAs and we have been extremely impressed by the research work and the performance achieved by Robert and Raphaël, who really differentiate from other systematic fund managers. They have focused their work on building a diversified trend-following program that is continuously invested on markets and that adjusts constantly the risk of the portfolio, based on the trend confirmation. KeyQuant outlines very well the fantastic pool of investment talents that you can find in France, especially in quantitative and systematic strategies. Our mission for Emergence’s investors is to detect the best of those and support their development.”

“Key Trends Ucits offer a very exciting investment opportunity for investors by bringing a very different risk/return profile among medium- to long-term trend-following programmes. It exhibits attractive absolute performance and low correlation to financial markets and other funds. I’m convinced that Key Trends Ucits will add significant diversification and alpha generation to many portfolios,” adds Philippe Paquet, NewAlpha’s head of business development.

Key Trends Ucits will start trading in early April with approximately USD40m in capital. KeyQuant manages in excess of USD150m.